courtesy of Naxos of America
In 2011 South-Western Broadcasting (SWR) in Germany launched the SWR JAZZHAUS record label. SWR began broadcasting jazz recordings and performances in 1957. It now boasts an archive of one of the biggest unpublished collections of live jazz worldwide with more than 3000 hours of radio recordings and 500 taken from television. The SWR JAZZHAUS record label is gradually making this material available with CDs distributed in the United States by Naxos.
A little less than two weeks ago, the label released an album of performances given by the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet at the 1961 Treffpunkt Jazz Festival. The first five tracks were recorded in Stuttgart, and the remaining two were recorded in Frankfurt. The performances are almost entirely instrumental with Gillespie leading on trumpet. The other members of this particular quintet are Leo Wright on both alto saxophone and flute, Lalo Schifrin on piano, Bob Cunningham on bass, and Mel Lewis on drums.
Gillespie’s “Con Alma” was recorded in both Stuttgart and Frankfurt. The other track from Frankfurt is his “Kush.” The remaining Stuttgart tracks include Gillespie’s “Oops-Shoo-Be-Doo-Be” (the only track with vocals), his arrangement of Vernon Duke’s “I Can’t Get Started,” Duke Ellington’s “The Mooche,” and “Willow Weep for Me” by Ann Ronell. Four of the tracks are over ten minutes in duration, allowing all of the members of the quintet generous slots for improvisation, often with playful references to other jazz standards.
By 1961 Gillespie was a “seasoned veteran” of an impressive sequence of phases in which modern jazz kept coming up with new ways to be modern. Those innovations would continue after his Treffpunkt appearance, particularly with his shift from Verve to Philips and his partnership with Les Double Six de Paris. Ward Swingle was a member of that group, and its imaginative approach to singing and improvising scat would evolve into the repertoire of The Swingle Singers. Within that historical framework the Treffpunkt selections can almost be classified as “traditional.” Nevertheless, there is no shortage of innovative imagination on any of the tracks (including the shorter ones), making this new release a valuable resource for those interested in the development of Gillespie’s ever-growing capacity for invention.
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